Fallout 3: The growing problem in the Capital Wast
by Angel Stryker
Summary: After activating Project Purity and making sure her father's dream came true, The Lone Wanderer from Vault 101 is still helping all who need it while trying to embark on a more civilized life...
1. Chapter 1: Return to Familiar Terrain

**After successfully activating Project Purity and taking care of the Enclave with the help of the computerized brain known as President John Henry Eden, Vanessa, the lady known to most as "The Vault Hero" among other names had finally decided to find a home for herself. The place that she chose ended up being Rivet City since it was widely regarded as one of, if not the most secure facility in the entire Capital Wasteland. In the two years that had passed since the success of Project Purity, Vanessa had kept herself busy with… more adventures and exploring, as if nothing had changed. You could say that adventuring was her past time and helping others ran in her blood. **

**But, one major aspect in Rivet City almost caused her to completely give it up, that was a man that she had fallen in love with, Butch, the head of the ,now defunct, Vault 101 Tunnel Snakes. While it did surprise most in the end, the fact that they were happy was enough for all others wondering. After months had passed since they fell for each other, it still hadn't started to make sense to the citizens of the City. She was the conquering hero of the Capital Wasteland while he was the leader of a gang that ran wild through one of the underground vaults. He also had garnered a reputation of being a coward, but over the past few years he had worked hard to rid himself of it. Another thing that had, at first, made everyone wonder how they meshed was the drastic difference in their demeanors. Butch was the (more often than not) troublemaker who had been doing some growing up lately, mostly thanks to her influence, while she was more passive most of the time. Although, she was known to have a bad side if you were to cross her.**

**Today though, she was set to head to the Lincoln Memorial for a check-in with the members of The Temple of the Union survivors. Every 4 months she would set out to make sure they hadn't been killed or taken back to Paradise Falls by slavers. But, just like always, Butch would try as hard as he could to talk her into taking someone with her and not go out alone through downtown D.C.**

"**I'll be fine, it's not like this'll be the first time that I've gone through there, Butch"**

"**Things are different in the ruins now, there's more Raiders than there ever were Super Mutants before Project Purity. Most of'em have access to purified water too, so that means they're healthier as well!" he pleads with her.**

"**So you're telling me that I should be more worried now that I don't have to deal with the large, green Super Mutants and instead have to deal with the smaller Raiders?" she asks.**

"**Nessa, you know what I mean. There's more to fight off than usual's what I'm saying."**

"**Listen Butch, I'll be perfectly fine. I'm just going to the memorial and coming straight back anyways, no detours." she tells him while putting on her Raider Sadist Armor.**

"**Well, I'm starting to see that there's no talking you out of going there by yourself." He starts before noticing the custom painted crimson Raider Armor and turning away from it. "Why do you still wanna wear that pile of shit? We could get you some better looking armor from Flak and Shrapnel."**

"**I've told you already, it's easy to slip into and with all the Raiders around the Wastes, it's easy to maintain since most Raiders where armor like this and I can use there's to fix mine if… it… needs it…" she tells him while struggling to slip into the revealing armor.**

**After noticing this, he smirks to himself, "Looks like life in Rivet City's agreeing with you, Nessa."**

"**Huh?"**

"**Looks to me like you're having problems fitting in that armor, trying too many of Staley's cakes?"**

"**Oh shut it, after traveling all the time for so long and then living in one place the majority of the time, what'd you expect to happen?" she asks him.**

"**It don't bother me, just that you'll either have to expand that armor or watch what you eat a little closer." he tells her while helping her tug the garments on. "There, all done."**

**I'll be fine, I just won't indulge as much as much anymore when I'm around Gary (Staley) is all." She tells him after noticing how her stomach and sides slightly pooch out over the edge of her armor.**

"**Fine, ok. Now what guns were you taking with you on the trip?"**

"**Umm… The Sniper Rife, the shotgun, and Chinese Assault Rifle."**

"**Ok, here's the Sniper, the Assault Rifle and… Which shotgun? Combat or Sawed-Off?" he asks holding one in each hand.**

"**Combat." she tells him while taking it from his left hand.**

**After about half an hour of her preparing for her trip, they are both at the bridge to Rivet City, saying their goodbyes until she returns.**

"**Take care of yourself, alright?" he tells her as they embrace in a tender hug.**

"**I will, you just worry about taking care of yourself and staying out of trouble while I'm gone."**

"**I've been doing that for a couple years now, that's no problem." he responds before embracing in a kiss and watching her go.**

"**Gimme about two weeks to get there, I'll try to see if they have a radio that I can contact you with over there once I get there though." she yells to him before disappearing behind a building.**

**He sighs after losing sight of her, **_**"Two weeks can't pass soon enough…" **_**he thinks to himself, already worried about her.**

*****

**It had been ten days since Vanessa had left Rivet City on her way to the Lincoln Memorial to check on Hannibal and his group of followers. By this time she had indeed run into quite a few Raiders, loads of them to be exact, but none had caused any trouble to her. Minor bumps in the road is probably the best thing to call them.**

"**Ah, there the blasted place is.." she tells herself as she notices the large structure at the end of the D.C. Plaza. Turns out, the trip didn't take the whole two weeks like she expected, she had made it there with four days to spare.**

"_**Guess it's been longer than I thought since I last traveled here, I could've swore that it took longer… Guess I'm just used to running into more prob-" **_**she starts to think to herself but is interrupted by a loud explosion coming from behind her.**

**Just as she spins around to see what caused the explosion she's hit in the head with debris from said explosion, causing her to stumble and fall to a knee as a stream of blood begins to slide down the left side of her head, barely missing going in her eye and impairing her vision.**

"**Gah!… Wha… what caused that?" she wonders, still groggy from the knock on the head as a set of footsteps begin to grow louder and heavier as the seconds tick away.**

**After a few more seconds of gathering her thoughts, she decides to duck and hide in a nearby bunker that happened to have a tarp in it. After jumping the barricade, she picks up the tarp and throws it over herself, making sure that she can see out of a little sliver of space between it and the ground. "Agh…. My head…" she whispers to herself, still trying to clear out all the cobwebs in her head while staying as motionless as she could get.**

"**From… the sounds of those footsteps, it must be a Behemoth." she whispered to herself under her breath before hearing another set of footsteps that sounded like a person's. From the sounds of it also, it sounded like he or she was running from the Behemoth as well and not being as lucky as she had been so far.**

"**I gotta get the hell outta here!" she hears someone yell out and deems him to be who the lighter steps belong to before another explosion erupts from that same direction. A few seconds later, debris begins to land on the tarp which she suspects to be rocks and possibly blood. After the debris stops falling a strained voice can be heard moaning and another stronger and deeper voice can be heard laughing.**

**A few more seconds pass by and a hand slides into her view. It's followed by another that seems to be pulling the rest of the person's body across the pavement. The explosion had left the man's body in horrible condition, cuts and scrapes lined his body. Both of his legs had been blown off due to the blast, the left leg right below the knee and the right leg right above the knee. Hoping that he wouldn't see her and draw attention to her, she sat still and perfectly quiet despite her head aching still from the still-bleeding wound on her forehead.**

**As the person's head slowly dips, his eyes cross her and notice her under the tarp.**

"**It… it's you." he tells her amid pain.**

**Sensing that she might as well respond since he's going to keep talking no matter what she does, she acknowledges him, "Do I know you?"**

"**I'm from… Big..Town, it's… me… Timebomb…"**

"**Timebomb!" she responds, a little louder than she meant to be. "Timebomb, what are you doing in the D.C. ruins?"**

"**I… was scavenging… Things in BigTown are… a mess… Our supplies ran out… And Bittercup is pregnant now… So… we needed more… supplies…"**

**As he continues explaining all the happenings through his wincing and labored breathing about Bittercup being pregnant and demanding more food due to the life growing within her, and Red needing more supplies to keep everyone healthy to an extent, she hears the heavy footsteps begin to creep closer once more. Knowing that if the Behemoth finds him he's dead and she might be as well. She had to make a choice of either going quiet and letting the Behemoth take him, or try to save him by pulling him under the tarp and risk getting caught as well…**

**_Ok, this is your chance to alter the story to what you want to happen. The two choices are either..._**

**_1. Pull Timebomb under the tarp and try to quiet him enough until the Behemoth passes..._**

**_2. Leave Timebomb out by himself to make sure she survives..._**


	2. Timebomb's Future and Butch's Ambition

_**CHAPTER 2: Timebomb's Future and Butch's Ambitions**_

"Y-ya gotta… save me…" Timebomb asks her while extending a hand slowly towards her. In her mind, she knew that saving him would gravely endanger her chances of surviving. It's not that she's never been able to kill a Behemoth, in fact, she had. When she first found the GNR (Galaxy News Radio) Building, she helped the Brotherhood's Lyon's Pride squad take one down.

"Please… save me… that… that th-thing is… coming." he continues, fear beginning to overtake him. After mulling it over for a few more delicate seconds, Vanessa comes to an answer that she knows is the right one…

"Timebomb… this is for the best…" she tells him before pulling out her assault rifle slowly.

After getting a glimpse of the gun, his eyes widen, knowing what she's more-than-likely about to do.

"N-no… Please… please don't" he begs her.

"Timebomb, it's for your own good…"

"No, please don't!" he begins to yell, causing her to worry that the Behemoth would hear him. While she was beginning to have second thoughts about killing him and maybe she could save him.

"Timebomb be quiet, please." she pleads with him.

"Don't shoot… please don't shoot!" he continues, his voice cracking

To her, killing him quickly was going to be more humane than letting the Behemoth get a hold of him. It would more-than-likely torture him for a bit, and his pleadings while that was going on would have haunted her more than putting him out of his misery herself. The only problem was that none of the guns she brought were quiet…

"Timebomb, shut up!" she tries to yell without raising her voice that much.

"Please don't shoot me, please!" he begins yelling coherently without pausing for winces.

…After a few more seconds and pleas for mercy pass by. The sound of a gun going off rings through the D.C. air. After trying to get him to calm down unsuccessfully, she really had no choice but to go about things this way. If she had let him continue begging her, the Behemoth would've gotten him and tortured him slowly until he finally died and maybe even found her because of Timebomb's yelling in the direction of the tarp she was underneath.

"_If he had just gotten quiet… I could've.. I don't know, maybe I could've found another way._" she thinks to herself, beginning to second-guess herself while putting her gun away. "_Hopefully that big bastard will just go away now_…" she continues.

All of a sudden, the footsteps disappear completely. No sound at all, just silence.

"Where did it go?…" she whispers to herself before deciding to poke her head up and out from underneath the tarp.

"He's… gone?" she wondered, looking around at all of her surroundings and seeing nothing out of the… "Ordinary"… except for a few large footprints, undoubtedly left behind by the hulking Behemoth. "That's strange for him to just disappear… Did he see Timebomb's body and notice it was dead and lose interest?"

A few seconds later, an explosion erupts behind her, causing her to fly forward roughly ten feet and underneath a school bus.

"Wh… What… was that?" she asks herself before feeling everything slowly starts fading to black…

_*****Back at Rivet City…*****_

"Butch, what're you doing down here? Aren't you supposed to be busy cutting hair?"

"Ah, to hell with that… I ain't gonna be in no rust bucket cuttin' hair for the rest of my life." Butch drunkenly responds while enjoying his 4th beer in the Muddy Rudder, seated alongside Tammy Hargrave.

"Well, you know that Vanessa isn't gonna like hearing that you blew off your responsibilities." Tammy tells him while enjoying her 5th.

"Ah, who cares… She's too much of a goodie-two-shoes anyways…"

"So why are you with her if you feel that way about her?"

"Simple, if I'm with her, she ain't gonna do nothing to me if I, heh, bend the rules abit. You know?" he replies before taking a swig of his beer and setting the empty bottle back down. "Not to mention, she's got an assload of bottle caps." he tells Tammy before laughing so hard that he nearly falls off his stool.

"That's not right…" a voice whispers from just outside the door to the bar.

"What's not right?" another voice asks.

"Oh, um… Nothing, I'm just thinking to myself, James."

"…You know what C.J.? You're strange sometimes."

"No I'm not!" she yells back at him.

"Hey, stop yellin' or my mom'll hear you."

"Then don't call me names!" she yells back at him.

"Who's callin' who names?" a voice chimes in behind them. Both of them turn around to see that it's Butch with Tammy holding him up and vice versa, sort of using each other as crutches.


	3. Free At Last!

**Free At Last!**

"Ugh… my head…" Vanessa muttered to herself, her voice raspy from being asleep as she rubbed the back of her head and squinted as her eyes adjusted to the sunlight. "Wh… where am I?"

"You're in a Super Mutant camp."

"What?"

"You were knocked unconscious by something, I'm guessing and then they brought you here. Just like they did me." the voice told her.

"Ok, and… just who are you?" she asked while looking around to find the origin of the voice.

"The name's Vaughn, they got me around the Arlington Library…" he told her as she was able to find him… he was hanging in a cage made of two shopping carts above her.

"Oh, there you are." she commented as she spotted him. He had shoulder-length brown hair and stubble all around his jawline.

"Yeah, I have no clue why they decided to hang my cage… It's a real pain in the ass to get comfortable since every time I move it decides to move with me…"

"Maybe they want to drive you insane." she replied before taking a good look around at her surroundings. "Any clue as to where we might be?"

"I'm guessing somewhere near a body of water, I can smell the stench of Mirelurks wafting in the air." he told her, "It almost makes me want to gag…"

"Please don't… I don't want to have to beat the hell out of you once we get out of here for barfing on me." she replied which got them both laughing. "Ow…" she whined after laughing for a few seconds as she clutched her stomach.

"You alright down there?"

"It's… my stomach, it cramped up or something when I started laughing."

"You going to be alright?"

"Yeah… it's going away… I wonder what brought it on though…" she wondered aloud as the pain slowly went away.

"While you were asleep and Vaughn was distracted, I saw Marquez walk over towards you with a syringe, I'm guessing he injected you with something." a voice chimed in, it had a raspy Hispanic accent.

"Who's there?!" Vanessa yelled out while trying to look around and see who spoke up.

"I thought you were asleep, Mya." Vaughn commented from above.

"It's kinda hard to sleep when you know that your life's in the hands of a pack of Muties and their leader."

"Um, where are you?" Vanessa asked, still not able to find Mya.

"I'm on the other side of this piece of tin."

"The super mutants, in their infinite wisdom, wanted to separate us… So, they put some tin between us." Vaughn explained to her.

"Well they never were considered to be intelligent." Mya added to which Vaughn followed up with a chuckle.

"I know my humor is bad, but I thought it was funny enough to laugh at." Mya told Vanessa.

"You said that some guy injected me with something?"

"Well, I didn't see him do it. But I saw him with a syringe that was full before he went to you and when he walked off, it was empty."

"Great… there's no telling what's going through my system right now…"

"Look on the bright side though," Vaughn spoke up. "Whatever was in that needle, it more than likely won't kill you."

"How are you so sure?"

"Well, if I were him… I wouldn't have spent time to have the super mutants bring in a live body just to inject it with something that would end up killing him or her." he explained.

"Hm, he does make a point." Mya observed before they all heard a door swing open off in the distance.

"Sounds like the nutcase is coming back…" Vaughn muttered just loud enough for Vanessa and Mya to hear.

"Yeah, it's him." Mya told them as she spotted a average-sized man with chestnut hair down to his ears approaching them, dressed in a tattered lab coat.

"So, we're all awake." he commented as he approached them.

"What'd you inject me with?!" Vanessa yelled at him.

"Oh, I see someone has quite the temper."

"You would have one too if some weirdo injected you with something while you were sleeping!"

"Hm, you may be right. Guess I'll have to be on the lookout for weirdo's with syringe's then, thanks for the warning." he replied mockingly before glancing at Vaughn's cage.

"Enjoying the view?"

"I had been enjoying it until someone blocked it."

"So sorry to hear that, anyways. How're you feeling, new arrival?" Marquez asked Vanessa.

"Like I'm going to be sick…" she responded, not wanting to cooperate but just blurting out how she felt at the moment.

"Well, that's normal. I'll be out later to check on you again." he told her before turning around and walking back to the little shack he came out of.

"Gah… he makes _me_ sick…" Mya said from the other side of the tin.

"Good thing I have this." Vaughn commented while holding up a bobby pin.

"Have what?" Vanessa asked.

"This bobby pin."

"You asshole, you had that this whole time?!" Mya yelled at him.

"Just how long have you had that thing, Vaughn?"

"You're such an asshole!" Mya responded, "You could've gotten us out of here!"

"Calm down you two, I just found it." he told them. "Apparently the one of the Super Mutants forgot it in the lock above my cage when the shoved me in here." he explained.

"Ok, so can you get us out now?" Mya asked, the irritation in her voice evident.

"Yeah, yeah just stay quiet so nobody hears us." he told her before beginning to fiddle with the lock.

Before long, an audible click sound can be heard and Vaughn's cage opens up, allowing him to slide out to his feet and land next to Vanessa's cage.

"Huh, you look cuter from this view than you did from above." he told her while working on the lock to her cage.

"You can try to woo us after you get us out, Vaughn." Mya called out right before he was able to get Vanessa out.

While she got out and stretched her limbs, she was able to get a better look of the surroundings as Vaughn was freeing Mya.

"So that's what you look like." Mya commented after rounding the sheet of tin. She had long, straight black hair that went just past her shoulders. She had very prominent cheekbones, giving an exotic look to her face. She had an hourglass body with curvy hips and smaller than average breasts and a small waist.

"Wow, you're... beautiful." Vanessa told her to which Mya smiled and thanked her.

"I've been telling her that since we got here, now let's go before they see us."

After freeing themselves and stretching their legs, they quietly began to make their way over a ridge and out of sight, just to the south. After running for a good ten minutes, they finally stopped to rest on some rocks and looked back over towards where they came from and realized that it wasn't a camp. It was was an old, abandoned fort that Marquez and his Super Mutant henchmen had taken over.

"Look, over there." Mya called out and pointed just to the southeast. "That looks like that Charnel House, I heard that Raiders used to live there and that it's surrounded by landmines and stuff."

"Yeah, it was." Vanessa answered her. "Until I got there." she told them before explaining that she was referring to a couple years ago when she was traveling the wastes in search of her father and ran across the place.

"So there's nobody there?" Vaughn asked, "And also, there's no mines there?"

"That's right. But there still should be some weapons lying around if I remember correctly."

"Perfect!" Mya shouted which caught the other two off-guard. "We can go there and use it as a temporary haven until we figure out where we want to head."

"Sounds good to me, let's go." Vaughn agreed before they set out for the deserted house off into the distance.

While on the trek to the Charnel House, they ran across only a few issues, Giant Ants (Ants that had been exposed to radiation and had grown to roughly the size of a large dog) and a few Bloat Flies (Flies that had grown to the size of a normal-sized bird). Luckily injuries were avoided by the facts that they could outrun the ants and kill the bloat flies by simply having good aim and some good sized rocks.

* * *

Finally, after a couple hours of walking they made it to their destination. The Charnel House looked just about the same as Vanessa remembered it, just maybe a few minor differences.

"This place has definitely seen better days," Mya observed as she peeled away some of the paint that had been chipping near the doorframe.

"Doesn't have to be pretty, as long as it has what we need right now." Vaughn pointed out before walking in and finding a chest on the second floor.

He was able to pull it down with a spare rope he found on the floor and jumped back as the chest came crashing down onto the ground and blew open. After doing so he glanced around at the other two and saw that they both were staring at him.

"Nice one…" they said in unison before walking over to him and seeing what all was inside.

"Hm, quite a few guns."

"Told you." Vanessa responded before pulling out an assault rifle and looking it over.

"Aww, you got the good one!" Mya whined playfully at her which they all got a laugh out of.

After a few more minutes of searching, they all ended up with two guns each, all in decent enough condition to last them a while. Vaughn found a .32 pistol and a sawed-off shotgun, Mya ended up with a 10-mm automatic and a hunting rifle, and Vanessa had her assault rifle and a combat shotgun.

"Seems like we're all set." Vanessa commented to which they all agreed.

"The only problem is that it's getting late, so it'd probably be best to just rest here tonight and head out early tomorrow morning." Vaughn suggested.

"Agreed."

"Well, since it was Vaughn's idea I say he stands watch while we sleep." Mya chimed in with a grin.

"Wha-"

"I agree, it's only right." Vanessa chirped before they both headed to the second floor where they had spotted two tattered-looking beds.

"Good luuuck!" they both said together.

"What in the hell just happened?!" Vaughn yelled out before looking around and throwing his hands up in frustration. "Dammit!"


	4. Long Road Ahead

**Long Road Ahead**

After an uneventful night, Vanessa and Mya both awoke and traveled down to the first floor sleepily to find Vaughn sound asleep, leaning against a post. They both looked to each other and gave a knowing nod before walking up to him and kneeling down in front of him quietly.

"One… two… three…." Mya counted down while Vanessa took a deep breath.

"Vaughn, Help!" They both yelled out which caused Vaughn drop his gun and roll over onto the dirt. Seeing his frantic movements made the girls burst out in laughter as Vaughn realized what had happened and began to get up.

"Very funny, you two… Geez…" he told them while he dusted his clothes off and picked his gun up off the ground. "You two are both lucky I didn't shoot you."

"We knew you wouldn't." Mya told him before retrieving her guns from the board she left them leaning against. "And if you did shoot one of us, I'm sure the other one would've shot you too."

"That's comforting." he replied.

"It's also the truth." Vanessa chimed in

"Anyways!" Vaughn spoke up then sighed, "So, where do we go from here?"

"Don't know, I'm pretty sure that Marquez will start sending out search groups soon." Mya responded then shrugged, "He might already have some out looking for us."

"Yeah, he always comes out to 'check' on us every morning. I'm sure he's done that already which would mean he knows we're gone and isn't too happy about it."

"Well I'd like to go someplace that might be able to tell me just what he injected me with." Vanessa told them.

"Well, yeah. That would be a good idea too." Mya responded.

"Agh!" Vanessa yelled out before grabbing her stomach and leaning against a wall.

"Vanessa?"

"Vanessa, what's wrong?!" Vaughn called out before kneeling before her.

"…Stomach… It hurts… bad." she managed to say.

"You think it's that shot she was given, Vaughn?"

"Seems like it could be… Let's help her to the mattress." he replied before they got on either side of her and helped her to the mattress that was upstairs. Once reaching the mattress, they slowly laid her down on it and observed, unsure of what to do.

"It still hurting, Vanessa?"

"Not nearly… as much as it was earlier. It's pretty much gone away." she answered before laying down on the mattress. Surprisingly, even though they had only been up for about an hour, she drifted off to sleep in mere seconds.

"We really need to find a place nearby that has a doctor or something that can tell us what Marquez injected into her." Vaughn told Mya with a sigh.

"Yeah, but I don't know of any places around here that could would have the resources needed to find out…"

"Well, I know that there's a Vault to the west of here. But it's a bit of a walk."

"At the moment, we don't have much of a choice considering that he's looking for us more than likely and that, if I remember correctly, Evergreen Mills is near here." Mya commented before squinting as she looked at the sky.

"Evergreen Mills… damn. That place is always crawling with Raiders…" Vaughn sighed.

"All the more reason to get outta here in a hurry, c'mon." she told him before picking her guns up as well as Vanessa's and walking to the front door to take a look to see if the coast is clear. "Alright, the coast is clear." she told Vaughn who then gingerly picked Vanessa up off of the cot and followed her out with Vanessa in his arms.

Meanwhile, back at the camp, Marquez had indeed found out that they were gone and had already sent out a few Mutants to find them.

"So, they think they can just take a leisurely stroll across the wasteland without the threat of me finding them and bringing them back?" he asked nobody in particular while he looked out over the wastes from the doorway of his work shed. "Especially that new one… She must be brought back!"

He then stormed back in and sat at his tattered desk and begin to read through a few scattered notes he had laying around, all over the table. Eventually he found the sheet he was looking for and looked it over.

"She is vital to my plans of creating a perfect Super Mutant soldier…" he told himself before turning to a chart that was stapled to a calendar. It showed the date that he had injected her and few more dates were marked as well with a big circle around a date that was a little over two months away.

* * *

It had been two days since they began their trek to the west and there still was no sign of a Vault to be seen. The day after they set out, Vanessa had awakened and all was explained to her in regards to their current position and how long she had been out. While their supplies had been sparse at best, lucky for them they happened across a few giant ants (ants that had grown to the size of a small child due to exposure to radiation.) and radscorpions (scorpions that had grown to the same size as the ants.) and were able to get enough food off of them to last them quite a while.

While it was true that they were hungry, they weren't sure how much longer they were going to be searching for the Vault so they had chosen to wait on eating their meager supply of food.

"I'm really hungry…" Vanessa moaned as she began to slowly lag behind the other two.

"We really should try to ration this as best as possible in case something happens." Vaughn told her while he continued to lead the way.

"I know, and I usually don't get this hungry like this. Just… Just toss me a piece of ant meat, ok?"

After thinking it over for a few seconds, Mya reaches into the bag and pulled out three pieces of ant meat. She tossed one to Vanessa, handed another to Vaughn and kept the third to herself. "There, we all have a little snack."

"Thank you so much, Mya. I don't know why I feel so hungry though." Vanessa replied before taking a bite out of the meat. "When I was traveling the wastes alone, I went a lot longer than this without food… Weird…"

"Well, it might have something to do with that shot the asshole gave you. Hopefully the people in this Vault can help out." Vaughn chimed in before taking a bite out of his piece as well.

"Vaughn's probably right, nothing major though I hope." Mya added before Vanessa finished her piece of the meat and nodded.

"You aren't the only one…" Vanessa agreed before picking up her pace to catch up with them.

After doing so, Mya looked to her and finally remembered a question she wanted to ask her.

"Hey, Nessa. Mind if I ask you something about that armor you're wearing?"

"Uh, sure. Go ahead."

"Well, why do you wear that kinda armor instead of something more practical and… well… less Raider-ish?"

"Oh, well it's just that with me finding so many Raiders out and about it's easy to maintain is all."

"Hm, that makes sense. Maybe I should do that."

"I'd suggest it, it may not be the most protective. But you can almost always find pieces of Raider armor around the wastes to repair it if it gets worn down over time."

"Well, I can kinda tell that you've had that one for a while now." Mya observed as she gave her armor a look over.

"Yeah, it's starting to look a bit worn out, I know. I haven't had a chance to make repairs in a while."

"There's that, and the fact that it looks like you've done some filling out since you started wearing it too." Mya pointed out while motioning to the fact that Vanessa's stomach slightly rounded out above the skirt part of the outfit and she had a slight muffin-top overall.

"Yeah… Although I don't think it felt this tight when I left Rivet City…"

"Really?"

"Yeah, I mean it was tight when I left but I don't remember if it felt this tight."

"Duck!" Vaughn yelled out as a pair of Bloatflies (regular flies that had grown to the size of a moderately sized bird) buzzed over their heads.

"Damn!" Mya exclaimed as she dove for the dirt at the same time as Vanessa did the same in another direction. "Damn bugs!"

After a few seconds of scrambling for their guns, Vaughn ended up shooting them both with two quick shots to the head. They both fell limply to the ground and rolled over to them, dead.

"Nice shooting, Vaughn." Mya complimented as she got up from her knees.

"Yeah."

"Thanks, now we might want to pick up the pace. Marquez and his big bastards might've heard that gunshot." he explained before rising back to his feet and beginning to walk, albeit quicker than before.

"He's right, c'mon Vanessa." Mya agreed and looked back to see Vanessa picking up the two Bloatfly bodies. "Eh?"

"Like we said, we don't know how long it'll take us to reach that Vault. So I'm just getting some meat out of here just in case we need it down the line." she explained as she walked by and continued to knife through the carcass.

"… It makes sense… but ew…" Mya muttered under her breath before following as well.

A few hours later…

"Hey, is that a cave up there?" Vaughn called out as he pointed to a dip in the terrain that looked like it led into a cave.

"Well, if I remember from the last time I passed through here… I think the Vault entrance should be somewhere around here." Vanessa commented.

"So, since you've been to this Vault before there shouldn't be any resistance, right?"

"Well, mostly no. But I'm sure that a few Mole Rats and Radroaches have snuck in since then."

"Those are a piece of cake to deal with though, not a problem." Mya chimed in from behind as she stopped next to Vanessa who was snacking on a piece of meat from one of the Bloatflies Vaughn shot earlier. "Hungry again?"

"Yeah, and it kinda annoys me…"

"It annoys you that you're hungry?" Vaughn asked, not really understanding what she meant.

"Well, like I said earlier, when I traveled alone it took a lot longer for me to get hungry enough to worry about eating something. So it's just annoying now that it seems I can't go a couple hours without worrying about eating something is all." she explained before eating the last bit of meat.

"Well, now that we've finally found this damned place. We can use the equipment inside to see what he did to you." Vaughn said to them before making his way down the slight decline in terrain and towards the cave in the distance.


End file.
